Big Society Scaled Back to Medium Society in Cuts

By

Iain Martin

Jan 28, 2011 4:48 pm GMT

An intriguing poll by You Gov in the Sun shows that there are rather a lot of voters who are in favor of the Big Society whilst not really knowing what it is. Under the headline “The Big…What?”, The Sun reports that 46% of those polled think it is a good idea (against 31% who don’t and 23% who don’t know). But asked “How well do you understand the Big Society?”, 28% said they understood it well against 63% who said they didn’t. That means there is a group of 18% who like the general sound of it but admit they don’t really understand the Big Society. If that’s not a marketing failure I don’t know what is. To further cheer up the Prime Minister, 68% think it won’t work anyway.

The Big Society has not lacked publicity. David Cameron built his election campaign on the notion. His first speech to the Tory party conference was a long plea, or more of a command, for Britons to get involved: Stop sitting around watching television…what do you mean you’ve just got in from work and you’ve got to do the ironing…get out there…get involved…there’s a youth centre at the bottom of your road with a leaky roof that needs fixing…